Translating Egypt's Revolution

The Language of Tahrir

Edited by Samia Mehrez

Description

This unique interdisciplinary collective project is the culmination of research and translation work conducted by American University in Cairo students of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds who continue to witness Egypt's ongoing revolution. This historic event has produced an unprecedented proliferation of political and cultural documents and materials, whether written, oral, or visual. Given their range, different linguistic registers, and referential worlds, these documents present a great challenge to any translator.The contributors to this volume have selectively translated chants, banners, jokes, poems, and interviews, as well as presidential speeches and military communiqués. Their practical translation work is informed by the cultural turn in translation studies and the nuanced role of the translator as negotiator between texts and cultures. The chapters focus on the relationship between translation and semiotics, issues of fidelity and equivalence, creative transformation and rewriting, and the issue of target readership. This mature collective project is in many ways a reenactment of the new infectious revolutionary spirit in Egypt today.

Translating Egypt's Revolution

The Language of Tahrir

Edited by Samia Mehrez

Table of Contents

Introduction: Translating RevolutionSamia Mehrez

I. Mulid al-Tahrir: Semiotics of a RevolutionSahar Keraitim and Samia MehrezII. Of Drama and Performance: Transformative Discourses of the RevolutionAmira Taha and Christopher CombsIII. Signs and Signifiers: Visual Translations of RevoltSarah Hawas and Laura GribbonIV. Reclaiming the City: Street Art of the RevolutionLewis Sanders IVV. Al-Thawra al-Dahika: The Challenges of Translating Revolutionary Humor Kantaro Taira and Heba SalemVI. The Soul of Tahrir: Poetics of the RevolutionLewis Sanders IV and Mark VisonàVII. The Army and the People are One Hand: Myths and their TranslationsMenna KhalilVIII. Global Translations and Translating the Global: Discursive Regimes of Revolt Sarah Hawas

Appendices (Arabic texts)NotesBibliographyIndex

Translating Egypt's Revolution

The Language of Tahrir

Edited by Samia Mehrez

Author Information

Samia Mehrez is professor of Arabic literature in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilization and director of the Center for Translation Studies at the American University in Cairo. She is the author of Egypt's Culture Wars: Politics and Practice (AUC Press pbk edition, 2010), The Literary Atlas of Cairo (AUC Press, 2010), and The Literary Life of Cairo (AUC Press, 2011).

Translating Egypt's Revolution

The Language of Tahrir

Edited by Samia Mehrez

Reviews and Awards

"This book is timely, fascinating, and applies theoretical insights from Translation Studies to the translation of the rich body of written, oral, and non-verbal communications connected with the Egyptian revolution. The authors (mostly students) are generally current with semiotic/translation theory, and have assembled an impressive quantity of materials that document the revolution and illustrate their larger arguments concerning its specifically Egyptian populist-aesthetic character."--Michael J. Reimer, Associate Professor of History, The American University in Cairo

"Samia Mehrez and her young colleagues offer a magnificent testimony to the revolution in imagination, signalling the dawn of a new era. A must-read for anyone wanting to grapple with the multiple meanings of Egypt's unfolding politics."--Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley

"A strikingly original and fascinating account of the way in which translation is core to an understanding of how events have transformed Egypt. In redefining conventional understandings of translation and equivalence, making visible the practice of the translator and in conceptualising translation as an act of rewriting, this volume of essays is a unique contribution to our understanding of how translation shapes the contemporary world."--Michael Cronin, Centre for Translation and Textual Studies, Dublin City University

"Jubilantly researched, the volume is no less painstakingly written . . . . the volume's assembled 'translations' of the contentious occupation of central Cairo's iconic square probe nonetheless deeply into longstanding Egyptian cultural, political, and linguistic historical antecedents in their accounts of the changing topography of the Arab nation's capital city--and its national, regional, and international repercussions."--Race & Class